Mealtimes

“ As to the manifold green stuffs which, changing with the season, may be presented as salad, their name is legion; and their choice must be left to the eater's judgment, fancy, and digestion, all of which vary greatly.
The combination of dishes to form a meal now demands our consideration. The occupations of man in a civilized state, no less than the natural suggestions of his appetite, require stated and regular times for feeding. ”

“ By that hour, in spite of their plentiful dinner, they have regained their appetites; and their digestion is again most active. These courses are as substantial as those of the dinner, and are despatched with equal facility by these men of iron frame and tranquil conscience.... Lent is arrived! Well, you must fast, you must mortify the flesh, but you must not die of inanition. A good table is necessary, or you will suffer too much from contrast with the past few weeks. ”

“ Dinner is eaten at twelve o’clock, and supper at seven. At breakfast we get coffee without sugar or milk; for dinner, mutton-broth, a piece of roast kid, pastry prepared with oil or a dish of cucumbers, and, as a concluding course, roast or spiced mutton. Twice in the week, namely on Fridays and Saturdays, we have fast-day fare; but if the feast of a particular saint falls during the week, a thing that frequently occurs, we hold three fast-days, the one of the saint’s day being kept as a time of abstinence. ”

“ If you have worked well in school and played hard and done your chores well, you will have a splendid appetite. In fact, you will think there is no other meal in the day that tastes quite so good.
Is your evening meal supper or dinner? If you have had a hot dinner at noon, you probably do not want anything more than a good supper. But if you had only luncheon, then you are ready to eat something hot and hearty about six o’clock. ”

“ That there be always both fresh and salt Meat for Dinner; and twice in the Week, as well as on Sunday in particular, that there be either Puddings or Pies besides; that there be always Plenty of Victuals; that Breakfast, Dinner, and Supper be serv’d up in the cleanest and neatest manner possible; and for this Reason the Society not only allow but desire you to get a Cook; that the Boys Suppers be not as usual made up of different Scraps, but that there be at each Table the same Sort: and when there is cold fresh Meat enough, that it be often hashed for them ”

“ In cold weather I can switch on my bedroom fire from my bed, and as my gas-ring has a long tube, heat my coffee without getting out of bed if I please.
"After breakfast I get up and put on an overall instead of my dress. With no fires and no washstand work and my long-handled cleaners the work is quickly done. I prepare what I need for lunch and dinner; food is so simple a matter when you live alone: my lunch, for example, is generally milk pudding, cheese and fruit, and my dinner of [137] two courses, meat or fish and sweet or cheese, and often I buy cooked food if I am very busy. ”

“ Breakfast should consist of thoroughly cooked cereals, wheatena, cream of wheat, malt breakfast food, cracked wheat, rolled or cracked oats, served with cream or sugar or both, whole wheat bread, muffins, or biscuits, with butter, raw or stewed fruit, coffee, tea or cocoa with milk. Luncheon may consist of milk or vegetable soups, eggs in any form, boiled potatoes, sweet potatoes, string beans, greens, or any green vegetables, simple desserts such as custards, rice or tapioca puddings, bread pudding, etc., milk, tea, cocoa, buttermilk, zoolak or koumiss as beverages. ”

“ Regular meals at, usually, unbroken intervals--dinner, never more than five hours after breakfast; luncheon, unnecessary; animal food, once certainly, in some lighter form, twice a day--are the suggestions of common sense followed out in most well-regulated households. But it is not the food which is eaten, but the food which is digested, that nourishes body and brain. ”

“ It should not be the heartiest meal, because the organs of digestion are weakened by long fasting, and the exhalations. Dinner should be the heartiest meal, because then the powers of digestion are strengthened, by the supplies of the morning meal. Light and amusing employments should occupy mind and body for an hour or more after a full meal.
But little drink should be taken, while eating, as it dilutes the gastric juice which is apportioned to each quantity of food as it enters the stomach. It is better to take drink after the meal is past. ”

“ In the highlands it is ham and eggs all day till you sicken. At the seaside it is fish till the bones stick in your mouth. But in bed—oh, there you get something worth eating. You don’t take three big meals a day, but twelve little ones, and each time it is something different from the last. There are delicacies for breakfast, for your four luncheons and your five dinners. You explain to your wife that you have lost your appetite, and she believes you, but at the same time she has the sense to hurry on your dinner. ”

“ The appetite of the fifteenth century seems to have been uncommonly good, for we find our ancestors eating four meals a day, beginning with breakfast at seven, dinner at ten, supper at four, and a collation taken in bed—oh, the cormorants!—between eight and nine in the evening. The meal taken in bed may have consisted of a blanquette de veau, or perhaps now and then a bolster pudding, while the ladies may have indulged themselves with a côtelette en papillotes. ”

“ The farmer who dines at two o’clock, for example, and, after walking about his fields for three or four hours in the afternoon, comes home in the evening with a genuine and undeniable appetite, has a legitimate right to an additional supply of wholesome food before betaking himself to his couch; because a sufficient interval has elapsed to allow the stomach to recover itself from the labour of digesting his dinner, and the continued waste of the system requires to be replaced. ”

“ To-day, for instance, I’ll tell you what our food was. Breakfast: good oatmeal with boiled milk and sugar, coffee, war bread, which one of the group toasted before the fire for our table, “bacon” the eternal, which is fried ham, and not very good. Lunch: a kind of meat loaf, rice, with cheese (which we have about every other day) , bread and butter, cocoa, and stewed figs, stewed without sugar. ”

“ He will eat little meat; but that little very savory and prepared in a manner to be easily digested. He will choose but light vegetables. He will flavor his breakfast with caviare and lemon; and at dinner he will relish rich stewed fruit, by means of which appetite and digestion are increased. Should he not feel strengthened immediately after dinner, he has sufficient time to wait till his food is transformed into blood. He takes a nap after dinner, and a pleasant walk in the open air, to get an appetite for his well-selected supper. ”

“ Man dines, he would contend, as dogs or horses feed, because his body needs replenishment. Breakfast, with its delicate light dishes, fine wine, fruits and coffee,—breakfast succeeded by a prime cigar, morning sunshine, and morning talk—is, essentially, a refined, a human repast. ”

“ Let us get up at five to-morrow morning, have a simple breakfast of—”
“Cornmeal mush or dry bread and milk,” finished Lilia, with grim sarcasm. “If time must be saved, of course, it must come out of the cooking! How are we to do this amount of work on a low diet, I should like to know?”
“How are the cooks to get time for anything outside the kitchen if they humor your unnatural appetites! Out of kindness, we propose to lower you gradually, meal by meal, into the pit of boarding-school fare.” ”

“ In short, the grand rule in fixing the number and periods of our meals, is, to proportion them to the real wants of the system, as modified by age, sex, health, and manner of life, and as indicated by the true returns of appetite; and, as an approximative guide, to bear in mind that, under ordinary circumstances of activity and health, three, four, or five hours are required for the digestion of a full meal, and one or two hours more of repose before the stomach can again become fit for the resumption of its labours. ”

“ The light lunch eaten in most homes demands much less time in cooking and eating than does a dinner, and leaves those who have partaken of it more fit for work than they would be were their stomachs burdened with the task of digesting soup, meat, vegetables, and dessert. ”

“ As with breakfast dishes, those for supper are more a question of trouble and time than cost; but food that we can enjoy instead of food for which we have no relish has such a material difference of effect upon our system. We may conclude our observations on the last meal of the day by a word of advice to the housewife, to have it, as far as lies in her power, suited to the taste of all. ”

“ Luncheon: for Billy: herring, cold muffins, doughnuts; for Dick and me: German toast, apple sauce.
Dinner: fish hash, biscuits, Indian pudding, milk.
Saturday.
Breakfast: oatmeal, German toast, cocoa shells.
Luncheon: for Billy: cold biscuits, hard-boiled eggs, bowl of rice; for Dick and me: rice and milk, doughnuts, apple sauce.
Dinner: baked beans, new raised bread.
[231] To a man accustomed to a beefsteak breakfast, fried hasty pudding may seem a poor substitute and griddle cakes may seem well enough to taper off with but scarcely stuff for a full meal. ”

“ She should remember that her cooking is not finished until she has cleaned up after herself, has washed and put away the dishes, washed the dish towels and left the kitchen in order.
What to Have for Breakfast—Breakfast is in most families the simplest meal of the day and the easiest to prepare. Some people are satisfied with fruit, cereal, toast or muffins, coffee for the adults, and milk for the [134] children. Many families, however, like the addition of a heartier dish, such as boiled or poached eggs, fish hash, or minced meat on toast. ”

“ I have two meals a day more habitually than any other number, but not with any prescribed regularity, for the reason that my activities are most irregular at times, and my appetite accommodates itself to my needs.
When I am doing work under the most favourable of conditions, one meal a day is the rhythm best appreciated by my body. ”

“ Both digestion and assimilation of food can be largely increased by daily taking [Pg 881] exercise No. 3 (see Vol. V, p. 1344) , vigorously, for ten or fifteen minutes just after rising and just before retiring.
Fifth Day: Same as the fourth, slightly increasing or decreasing the quantity of food according to hunger.
Sixth Day: Same as the first, repeating, for a period of two or three weeks, the menus as given, varying the meals by choosing different vegetables in the same class as those prescribed. ”

“ The menu for luncheon consists usually of soup, fruit, lobster in cutlets or croquettes, with mushrooms, or omelet, or fish; broiled chicken, or lamb chops, with green peas and potatoes; a salad, crackers and cheese; ice cream, with coffee, tea, or chocolate. [149]
At a breakfast or luncheon, as at a dinner, every effort should be made to be punctual. The success of such an occasion may be ruined by a tardy guest. ”

“ They always ate plain food and plenty of it, and they never ate between meals. They had breakfast from the time they awakened in the morning until the sun was high in the sky, then they had dinner until the sun was low in the sky, and supper from that time until it grew dark and they went to sleep: but never a mouthful between meals, no matter how hungry they might be. ”

“ Artificially arranged, however, as society now is, whole classes of the community find it impossible to dine till much later in the day. The question then comes to be—As we cannot follow the system laid down by Nature, what is the next best to be done? Ought we to eat nothing till we can find time to dine at five, six, or seven o’clock; or ought we rather to take a light meal at the natural time, about one or two o’clock, and reserve our appetite chiefly for the substantial meal which we have leisure to digest? ”

“ It is always well, if that be possible, to sit still reading the paper, or smoking, or resting in any way, for from three-quarters of an hour to an hour after each meal. For breakfast, oatmeal, coffee, and perhaps a couple of eggs with toast is quite as much as it is well for you to take, unless you have been in the habit of eating a very heavy breakfast. ”

“ Although a meal satisfies your hunger you should have dessert, because the educated palate craves that particular spice as a proper finish. Scientists tell us that a dinner digests better because of a tasty dessert, which, they say, gives the final stimulus necessary to dispose of the food previously received. ”

“ In England, where the dinner hour falls later than it usually does in this country, the light sustenance offered by afternoon tea serves as a welcome break in the long stretch which intervenes between luncheon and dinner. Here a man who has his appetite whetted for a six-o'clock repast cares little for a trifling [Pg 266] refection at five or half after five. It only serves to blunt his hunger without satisfying it. ”

“ If three meals are eaten, the heartiest meal should be taken at midday. The breakfast should be substantial, the evening meal very light, especially avoiding pastry, fats, rich sauces, and hearty foods. The evening meal should consist chiefly of ripe or cooked fruits, liquid foods, and such cereals as boiled rice or cereal flakes. ”